** This is the quasi-official and semi-temporary T13 email list server. **
This thread on INF-8020 does not warrant the air time it has been getting.
It is extremely hard to comprehend the anguish over a specification that was
wrapped up in mid-1995, and has been under the control of standards
committees ever since.
Opinions on the facts may be different, but facts are facts.
- SFF does not restrict people from attending SSWGs, they are open
to anyone who wants to attend.
- Claiming to be a non-member and therefore being ignored is not
only a copout, it is untrue. Non-members submit comments all the
time, and they are discussed in SSWGs.
If you stop beating on the dead horse of ATAPI and look at an SFF
project in progress such as Optical Transceivers you will discover
lots of suggestions from non-members are being incorporated.
- Personal emails to editors don't count, and never will count. You
cannot get peer review if you keep your concerns private. Unless
an issue is aired it will not receive a review by peers.
The fact that Hale and 8020 editor Devon Worrell disagreed is not
a revelation. Most of T13 has disagreed with both of them at
various times because each has strong opinions and the technical
wherewithal to back them up.
- Committees are required to give at least some consideration to
proposals and submitted comments, but no such requirement applies
to email because traffic over a reflector is a form of
conversation which may or may not affect the individuals involved.
- All the hard disk vendors were members of the SFF Committee during
the development of ATAPI. Any one of them could have corrected the
items that have been claimed as major deficiencies which T13 has
been unable to correct in the last six years.
Below is the list of hard disk manufacturers which chose not to
make any negative technical comments, and how they voted on the
publication of INF-8020.
Abstain Conner Peripherals
Abstain Fujitsu
Yes Hitachi
Yes IBM
Yes Integral Peripherals
No Maxtor
No Quantum
Abstain Seagate
Abstain Toshiba
Yes Western Digital
They either saw no conflict between ATAPI and ATA behavior at the
time INF-8020 was published or they could not be bothered. The
result was the same.
- 8020 was not developed in a vacuum, it had representatives from
both ends of the cable. The OEMs below voted on INF-8020.
Yes Compaq
Yes DEC
Yes Dell
Yes IBM
Yes Intel
Yes Microsoft
Yes NEC
Looking at the emails I received from the SFF reflector during the period of
October 1993 (start) to May 1995 (SFF-8020 handed over to X3T10), produces
some interesting numbers.
- Total ATAPI traffic over the SFF reflector came to 285 emails.
- Total traffic originated by Hale was five.
o two emails in August 1994
o three emails in January 1995
By August 1994, the horse was long out of the barn.
The first revision of ATAPI was published in February 1994 and the first
flood of ATAPI CDs had appeared mid-year.
By January 1995, when the comments were made on the 8020 specification,
several million CDs had been shipped.
Hale's January comments did cause some technical changes, but the editorial
comments were not acted upon. It was felt that the sooner ATAPI went to a
standards committee the better, and the ANSI editors would adjust the words
to suit the standards. Four months later, the spec was handed over.
Editors meetings on a specification are open to anyone and everyone, and
they were announced over the SFF Reflector throughout the period. The last
one was held in May, shortly before the submittal to X3T10.
Changing gears, some background on the mood of the times.
The private meetings on ATAPI which began in early 1993 caused great anguish
because disk drive vendors were excluded from private meetings. Only CD and
software companies were allowed to participate.
As a controller company, WD had developed the original disk controller for
IBM. Imprimis (now Seagate) had used WD to develop the world's first IDE,
a 5 1/4" drive for Compaq.
That's why the private group wanted WD's expertise in this area to help them
develop the ATAPI specification. By then, WD had become a disk manufacturer.
Competitors assumed that WD was out to screw them, so wanted 'in'. At issue
was an ATAPI disk command set rumored to be under consideration by Apple as
a way to retain their SCSI software to run cheap ATA-cable disk drives.
Disk vendors in general wanted ATAPI to fail so that ATA would not be
impacted by an ATAPI HDD specification, and ATA disk vendors would not have
to develop ATAPI disk drives.
The private meetings lasted about six months. The group went public in
September 1993 because of pressure and the need for wide industry support.
Hale was one of the outspoken opponents who opposed ATAPI as an interface
that had anything to do with ATA. Only a few of those in the ATA disk world
wanted ATAPI to succeed.
The belligerence of ATAPI bigots and dog in the manger attitude of ATA
vendors caused huge problems between both sides that were reflected in the
specification and in later attempts to make corrections at T13.
The OEMs beat on vendors to share disks and CDs on the same cable and it
should surprise no one that their perseverance won the day. The reason was
simplicity itself, it saved OEMS money.
FACT: ATAPI CD-ROM was virtually an overnight sensation, the revision
published in February 1994 was in production in 2H94.
FACT: ATA and ATAPI have shared the same interface for years now, though
not necessarily the same cable. Most machines today have UltraATA
and ATA, and ATAPI peripherals are consigned to the ATA connector.
FACT: Most of the people most of the time have never noticed a problem
and whether that can be attributed to BIOS, driver, software
workarounds, or separate connectors is irrelevant. The bottom line
is that the world at large sees few problems.
Take a look at the zigs and zags within T13 on ATA-unique items and you will
get some idea of the complexity of juggling future requirements with past
implementations for seamless backwards compatibility.
Considering all the other issues that Serial ATA is going to introduce to
the market, it is interesting to find so much attention focused on the
what's and wherefore's of an ancient and expired specification.
Hoping that this thread ends soon,
Dal
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Date: Tue Aug 23, 1994 7:04 pm PST
From: Hale Landis
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: PIO Mode 3+ ATA Host Adapters and ATAPI
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Date: Fri Aug 26, 1994 6:28 pm PST
From: Hale Landis
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: interrrupting a command in ata-2
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Date: Thu Jan 05, 1995 6:13 pm PST
From: Hale Landis
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TO: * Dal Allan / MCI ID: 250-1752
Subject: slave only
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Date: Sat Jan 21, 1995 11:07 pm PST
From: Hale Landis
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TO: * Dal Allan / MCI ID: 250-1752
Subject: comments on ATAPI spec
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Date: Tue Jan 31, 1995 5:53 pm PST
From: Hale Landis
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TO: * Dal Allan / MCI ID: 250-1752
Subject: task file shadows
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Date: Tue Apr 18, 1995 6:04 pm PST
From: Thomas Hanan
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TO: * Dal Allan / MCI ID: 250-1752
Subject: Meeting Notice & Changes in SFF8020R2.2
This E-mail provides a summary of significant additions and deletions
agreed to for revision 2.2 of SFF8020 at the last SFF 8020 working group.
An additional SFF8020 editors meeting is scheduled for May 2nd in San Jose
to address comments received at the X3T10 ATAPI meeting and via the SFF
ATAPI reflector.
***********************************************************************
M E E T I N G N O T I C E
***********************************************************************
Subject: SFF8020 Editors Meeting
Comments and changes for SFF8020R2.2
Date: May, 2nd 1995
City: San Jose
Location: Raddison Hotel (near airport)
Time: 9:30am - 5:pm
***********.........................
...............................***********************
I hope this e-mail helps you understand what major items that have been
changed. I look forward to your comments on the ATAPI reflector and your
participation at the SFF editors meeting on May 2nd.
************************************************************************
Tom Hanan, Western Digital, 714 932-7472, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
************************************************************************
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Date: Tue May 09, 1995 7:46 am PST
From: Hale Landis
MBX: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TO: * Dal Allan / MCI ID: 250-1752
Subject: End of the road?
>From Hale to various reflectors concerning ATA and ATAPI.
I've been watching all the "discussion" over SFF-8020, command
overlap/queuing, etc, and I find it most interesting. I also
wonder when we will give up on trying to make ATA and ATAPI "work
together".
As many of you know, I've been saying for years that ATA and
ATAPI are two different interfaces. No attempt should be made to
make them work together. They are for two very different types
of I/O devices. It is time for all of us, and especially the
hard disk drive industry, to free ourselves of this burden of
trying to make these things work together......
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